Top five features of winning websites

No matter what your product or service, your website is your online storefront. It is an extension of you. A poorly designed website can do more damage than not having a website at all. More and more people conduct research online before making a purchase. That research will hopefully lead them to your website. Once they get there you have only a few seconds to get their attention or it’s off to the next website. So what’s the secret to creating websites that get people to visit and stick around?

1. The look – Appearance is everything. A poorly designed website with little or no graphics is unlikely to keep visitors interested. The same is true of websites that go overboard with Flash animations, sound effects, and crowded layouts.
2. Content – Your site must have original, engaging content that provides useful information. A well designed website will have a good balance of text, graphics, and multimedia.
3. Mobile Friendly– Having a website that can reformat the content based on the device being used is extremely important. Visits from users using mobile devices is growing rapidly.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – A well designed website will use SEO best practices for keywords, titles, and meta data.
5. Conversions – This is the most important feature of any website. You can incorporate all of the above features into your website, but if you’re not converting visitors into customers then you’re just wasting your time.

When we build websites, we strive to keep the above principles in mind. We work exclusively with WordPress. We have chosen this platform because of its flexibility and the ease with which even non-programmers can add, update, or modify content.

One of the great things about WordPress are the thousands of themes that you can use as a starting point with your website. This saves both time and money. You pick the look and feel that you like. Once you’ve found the right template or theme, we’ll work with you to make sure that we incorporate the right balance of text, graphics, and multimedia. And we’ll do all of this while following SEO best practices. More importantly, we’ll use every trick in the book to turn site visitors into customers.

The Process

Once we’ve had a chance to talk to you about your goals and ideas for your website, we’ll go over the different options.

We’ll give you a list of theme sites to visit where you can pick out the design that you find most appealing. There are thousands of designs to choose from. Visit our links page for links to a number of excellent WordPress theme sites. If you’d rather have us pick out a website design for you, the cost is $150 in addition to the cost of the theme. We’ll try to find up to three themes that we think will work best for you. Once you have settled on a theme, we’ll get to work.

SEO Copywriting

Whether this is your first website or a website redesign, you are responsible for the content of your website. If you would rather have us write the content for you, we offer an SEO copywriting service. Please visit our SEO copywriting service page for more information.

We don’t just build websites. We build online marketing hubs.

When you hire us to design and develop your website, you’re getting much more than just a website developer. We are an online marketing company. If you want to get the most out of your website, you have to look at the website as just one component of your online marketing strategy. We’ll show you how to use your website along with other online marketing solutions to generate sales and leads.

Mobile Website Development

Want another reason to choose WordPress? How about the ease at which you can convert your site into a mobile site. For an additional fee, we can convert any of the sites we develop into mobile websites. Best of all, it doesn’t require two separate sites. We simply reformat the content on the fly.

Can’t most smart phones display regular web pages? They can, but that doesn’t mean they do it well. Websites take up a lot of screen real estate. When you add in drop down menus and complex layouts, accessing that content on a mobile phone becomes an exercise in frustration. A smarter approach is to format the content specifically for the type of device the content is to be viewed on. Navigation is easier, content is easier to read, and you can even add the ability for touch to call. Want to see it in action? Just load this site into your mobile web browser for a demonstration. Use the link at the bottom of your mobile browser to jump between mobile website and full site view. You’ll quickly see the advantage of having a site specifically formatted for mobile phones.

Have an iPad? We also have the capability of reformating your content specifically for the iPad. Here again we reformat the content specifically for the device. Load this site up in an iPad and see for yourself.

We live in a multi-screen, multi-device world. We make sure that your content is accessible regardless of the device.

In addition to the above services, we also offer mobile only websites. This solution is perfect for any company that wants a simple mobile only site in order to take advantage of mobile marketing opportunities. A mobile only site is one that is designed specifically for mobile phones. We can have your mobile only site up and running in days.

Regardless of whether you choose a multi-device website or a mobile only site, it’s important that your site be mobile friendly. You can learn more in our article Why you need a mobile friendly website.

Included Services

The following services are included with every website design project:

• XML sitemap
• Website sitemap
• Robots.txt file (For search engine crawlers)
• Google Analytics (website tracking and analysis software)
• Meta tag SEO (meta title, meta description, meta keywords)
• SEO permalink structure
• RSS feeds through Feedburner (For sites with blog integration)
• All graphics and images (provided by you) will be optimized and sized for optimal delivery over the web. (Custom graphics such as logos, banners, and images require an additional fee.)
• Cross browser compatibility
• Social media integration (for existing social media profiles)

Other Considerations

Whether you are building a site from scratch or replacing an existing website, it usually takes between three to six weeks from start to finish.

Lastly, even winning websites won’t make a difference if no one ever sees it. We offer the following additional services to help drive traffice to your new website: search engine optimization,  PPC advertising, social media marketing, and mobile marketing. Please be sure to check the pricing page to request a free quote. And don’t forget to check out the special offers page to see what discounts are available.

Click Here Online Marketing is a St. Louis web design company, but we can work with clients anywhere in the world.